


These Changing Seasons

by cnd555



Series: In Between the Dreams [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, M/M, non-powered
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-26 18:54:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20935094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cnd555/pseuds/cnd555
Summary: Frank's gotta go.





	1. Warm Winds and Changing Seas

**Author's Note:**

> Rated mature for profanity. Works inspired by Gregory Alan Isakov.

“So you’re leaving?”

Frank couldn’t look at him. Coward that he is. He can only watch the flecks of sun paint the sea red. “Shit, yeah, Red,” he scoffs. “How many times I’ve got to say it?”

“Frank.”

Red says his name like a prayer and Frank despises it. He ain’t no saint. Far from. He’s a fuck up. A delinquent from the Kitchen. Bloody knuckle, massive ego, magnet for trouble with a string of broken hearts trailing behind him. Whatever Red wants from Frank, he’ll only inherit a woven patchwork of dysfunction.

“Yeah, fine. Whatever.” He takes a breath, watches the beauty of the sea before turning to Red. She cannot compete. Red takes his breath away so effortlessly. “Mum’s off to Colorado so I guess I am too.”

He lights a cigarette, knowing that Red hates the habit. He watches the smoke curl like galaxies, pretty little things, but through the hazy grey there is Red. More gorgeous than the sea and her stars, more brave than the moon and her waves.

“Frank. It’s all right.” Red captures his bruised hands. Soft and firm to Frank’s calloused and skittish. Red makes him a better man. He does. “We’ll see each other again.”

Red whispers it like a promise and for a minute Frank believes. He feels this world against him, offering him other mysteries and toys. Gifting him iron and blood, dirt and dust in lieu of her most treasured son. He’ll give it all up. The fighting, the perpetual anger, the drugs, all in trade for just one kiss. He takes another puff of the cigarette, tries to exhale away from Red but couldn’t look away.

He’s a fucking coward. He’s a fucking coward is what he can only think as he looks at Red’s lips. Quickly before the whiskey runs. Quickly before he loses what little courage. Quickly let the sun sleep behind the horizon so she cannot see his shame.

He wants Red so bad. Wanted him since third year of secondary, known him since primary as the little ‘me against the world’ runt. Fuck they got into so much trouble but Red could always see the lines, even for a little blind squirt. Lines he will not cross and what about Frank? There were no lines of morality, just lines of fucking coke and fucking up. He guesses this is his punishment. Mother Universe, she loves Red, thinks it’s best to send the monster away.

Frank’s staring at him. The irony is as palpable as the salt in the air and Frank could almost laugh. First he wouldn’t – couldn’t glance at him but now he cannot look away. Frozen still by Red. Frank’s got the beauty of nature right beside him, her purple, red, yellow and orange hues painting artworks worth millions, the sea echoing a song just below him but no amount of nature could compare to Red’s face and all the promises of Heaven he offers Frank. Fuck.

Frank’s hands shake, from both the anticipation and the drugs, as he goes to cup Red’s face but chicken the fuck out half way. He just leaves the hand hanging a few centimeters from Red’s skin, imagining the soft, the warm. He’s not sure if Red knows but Red does tilt his head ever so slightly to Frank’s awaiting palm. Not touching, not inviting but daring. Fuck Red. Fuck Red and his insistent teasing all the Goddamn time.

“I’ll miss you,” Red says and it’s like he’s echoing Frank’s unsaid words.

“Fuck, Red.” Another puff. “You’ll be all right when I’m gone?”

“I’ve got a mean right hook.” Red smirks and Frank’s heart stutters. The sea laughs. ‘Yeah, fuck you,’ he thinks to her. “And I’ve got Fogs.”

Ah yes, fumbling fool Nelson. Frank flares in jealously. He was Red’s friend first. He hears Red chuckle, “don’t worry, Frank. He won’t replace you.”

Frank’s got lots of things to say though they refuse to free from his tongue. Trapped as they are, like him. Shackled and chained to his fuck up family, following whatever fires they decide to light up and burning the homes he’s built.

When he leaves, he’ll have to unlearn the stars, scared they won’t tell him the same ancient stories. The sea and her waves will not look the same. Moving from having memories with the ocean to having hold of only her absence. A blind boy shaped shadow to hold only in his mind.

He hates that he can only offer useless words, let downs and beatings to Red. Why Red sticks is beyond him but Frank’s gotten used to the barnacle that’s weathered through all of his seasons; storms, hurricanes, forest fires, nuclear bombings.

‘I love you,’ Frank thinks, hoping Red will in turn echo his thoughts. He waits but it never comes. Just Red and his gentle hands resting on Frank’s, listening to the sound of the sea, hearing melodies and promises she gives him.

“I’ll find you,” Red promises.

They stay like that, sitting on the cliff edge while the sun sets still, the wounded world spins and they’re just two specks of dust in this infinite universe.


	2. Glass House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Frank wanted to go but never did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated mature for drugs and profanity. Works inspired by Gregory Alan Isakov. 
> 
> Takes place two years before chapter one.

**Summer of ‘06**

When they had told him his brother was dead, he didn’t shed a tear. When his mother huddled, strangers he hasn’t seen since he was a wee boy came knocking, they still refused to come.

The wake, the funeral, the month, and still, none came. The subsequent days birthed and decayed, and it was all a dream.

Between the cocaine and the whiskey, the dirty men’s hands on his shoulders weighed less, the wet breaths of his aunties felt like a warm breeze, their pity; a mask.

Took only two months and they don’t say his name no more. As if Michael never sat on that ugly green couch for fourteen years. Two months and years of Michael thumping down the stairs every Goddamn morning; smothered. 

When the drugs begin to wear off, he’s suffocated by the constant crowd coming in and coming out of this shithole. Yet still, he didn’t cry. So he’d go for another hit.

In the night, he’d climb on the roof and smoke a joint til the sun’s out, pink sky til he comes down. How wide the night, how confining this heart.

He smokes in hopes to burn down the house but all it does is burn a hole in his coat, in his lungs, holes in his fucking soul. Ash rains down on him, even the filth has made its way to the outreaches of the sun.

A thief in the night came and took his brother away and now it’s coming to get him too. What if he just rolled off the roof and gifted them a red shaped Frank on the driveway? Would they whisper his name in the aftermath and then just as quickly as he had splattered himself on the concrete, would they stop speaking his name?

Red, he knew, wouldn’t. He’d say ‘Frank’ over and over and Lady Universe would get so tired of hearing her son’s tantrum she’d gift Frank back to him. But no one says Michael’s name anymore.

The Universe refuses to give Frank his baby brother back.

He’s only half sober when he goes to see Red, just so he could feel his warmth. He’s replaced one addiction for another. Now it’s coffee for the heartache.

When he walks the path back home, the whiskey stops working, this empty northern hemisphere stares down at him; just a lonely boy wandering midnight.

It takes forever but he ends up at a crack house. Just throws whatever hundreds he’s stolen from Red on to the coffee table.

He does three lines off a babe’s backside, rolls a fucking fifty to snort that shit up. They offer him pills and he takes that too. He’s so fucking high as he sits on the floor. Stares for hours as smoke curl from the table in this glass house, stares at memories etched in old and new scars.

A scar here from jumping a fence with Michael, a scar there from Michael pushing him into a fucking firethorn, scars everywhere; Michael, six feet under.

Oh God. He’s fucking drowning. Ain’t no forgetting he’s all alone now. His brother, my beautiful baby brother. His hands shake so violently as he cradles Michael. There’s blood all over, holes in Michael’s chest, ones not made from cigarettes.

“Michael,” he mumbles and somehow he’s on the vomit stained floor staring at the popcorn ceiling. There’s a storm brewing, her violent winds thrash against the foundations of this house. She brings with her the sea; he can hear the beating of the waves just outside. They might have just been swept by the ocean as she confines them to this house. Her rocking movements make him seasick, eliciting bile to the back of this throat.

The house is tilting left and right. It’s hot and humid inside. Frank cannot breathe, random noise surrounds him, chaos a dime away. This Goddamn glass house; polluted. It’s so fucking hot.

“Michael,” Frank whispers as he rolls on to his side to get a better look at him. He takes a breath but it doesn’t filter. The pollution too strong for his rotten lungs. He tries for another but ends up coughing blood all over the carpet. Frank’s dripping wet, this decaying house has a leak and now the storm is coming in. He moves onto his back to catch a breath.

There are half naked people walking around the place. Frank cannot lift himself up but he can tilt his head upwards. There’s two people fucking on the dirty couch upside down. The perspective makes Frank’s eyes roll to the back of his head. The movement makes him nauseous. He takes an empty breath. The sound he makes is worrying.

He turns his head to look at Michael. “Call Red,” Michael says gently beside him, staring at Frank. Frank blinks back.

He wants to tell Michael he loves him one last time before he goes but his tongue is heavy, made from lead. It refuses to move. The words flutter in Frank’s chest. _Let me out, let me_ _out_, they plead. Oh God, the thumping of the walls, the battering of the sea, the hammering of the swallows. It all makes him so sick. 

Michael smiles like he knows and Frank holds back a cry. Michael always knew. Could read him like a book, could read Frank from start to finish and decline to put the novel down even after it all ends. “Call Red, Frank.”

And like that, he’s swallowed by the sea that has finally broken down the door. Frank cannot get up fast enough to hold on to his brother’s hands. Too late. How life has always been for Frank; from birth it was all too late.

He cannot even stand. He’s on all fours when he vomits on the grimy carpet that prickle his palms. His movements are slowed, he’s half a mind to just lay there covered in his own puke.

Frank crawls his way to the bathroom and slams the fucking door. What has he become but the thief in the night? Stealing from his only friend for a hit to numb the fucking pain, in some stranger’s crack den bathroom, the mold in the corner of every tile, blood stains around the sink. Piss and shit. His hands shake so violently and Frank tries to anchor his unsteady palms by gripping onto his hair. Oh God. What has he done?

He sits on the toilet. His palms are a thousand shades but they’re all shades of blue. They crawl up to bloom at his chest, at his lips. Too late is all he can think. He’s gotta fucking go. He’s going to fucking go but he doesn’t want to leave without telling Red. The final wave comes crashing and Frank lets it in. Only the waters don’t come from the windows or the doors, they burst from his inside, the dam he’s been hoarding inside his chest for too long has broken.

He cries, cannot stop. Snot rushes from his nose and he shakily wipes them away. Frank holds his face in his palms, hunch over on the filthy toilet making meek weeping noises. Fucking pathetic.

He tries to breathe but there’s still so much muck in his lungs. He can barely see his phone screen as he tries desperately to call Red. His tears make the screen stop working. He tries three times before it connects.

Red picks up on the first ring. Nothing escapes Frank’s lips but what else is new. He tries to chuckle but his lungs don’t work like they used to and he just lets out a quiet sob. There’s a beating at the bathroom door. Her Lady the Sea has come to get him. Quickly now, come on. “Red,” is all he can muster.

The phone falls from his hands and Frank sinks onto the floor to become just another smear on the tile.

The darkness drags him with her sharp nails. He drowns in the vast ocean but as quickly as he had dipped into the black waters, there’s a gentle, soft thumb rubbing across his skin. He can feel its warmth pleading him to come back home. He feels the seas lift him into her chest, cradle his head, a faint kiss to his temple…

“Please Frank,” he hears Red cries.

Out of all things, he doesn’t want to be the reason for Red’s tears.

“Red,” Frank says, “I’m sorry.” Frank pries his eyes open, he wants to see Red one last time.

Frank looks at the boy before him. So gorgeous and breathtaking in his own right. That nose, those jawlines, these lips. Frank’s fingers sweep over Red’s mouth. His hands slither up Red’s face and Frank’s palm fits perfectly beside Red’s jaw. He thumbs the soft skin just beneath Red’s unblinking eyes.

Red visibly relaxes, his stiff shoulders deflating. A sigh escapes him. “Don’t be silly, Frank. There’s nothing to apologise for.”

Well, there is. There’s a lot. Frank’s sorry his brother’s dead instead of him. He’s sorry that he stole a good 400 from Red. He’s sorry he’s kissed a thousand wrong lips when the one he’s starving for is right in front him. He’s sorry he’s never told Red he’s loved him so.

“Don’t lie like that, Frank.”

He wants to bite back that he ain’t lying but he can’t remember what he’s said so Frank just closes his eyes and tries to remember the feeling of being held by Red.

“We need to get you to a hospital.” Red’s feeling him all over. There’s Frank’s sweat, tears and snot staining Red’s delicate fingers. Red runs over his face and those fingers stutter over Frank’s lips. Red hasn’t felt Frank in years, since they were eleven. It feels all too comforting. He’s missed this.

He can’t remember when they had stopped. Maybe when they entered secondary and realized little boys don’t do that shit anymore. They don’t yearn to be held, they yearned for the sins that numbed their broken lives.

“It’ll wear off,” Frank lies. For now, he wants to sleep in Red’s arms. This may be his only chance to.

He hears Red huff, “at least let me drag your ass back to my place.”

The rest is sort of a blur. In the morning when he wakes there’s warm coffee next to Red’s bed and a glass of water. He cannot remember fucking shit but he’ll try to hold onto the feeling of Red’s dainty fingers running through his hair as he lies in this familiar bed quietly shedding the tears he’s held on for for so fucking long.


End file.
